


With Me

by Path



Category: Exalted
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-14
Updated: 2011-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-16 23:29:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Path learns from his own First Age incarnation what Dragon-Bloods are for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Long story short, my signature Lunar Path got his previous incarnation's ghost stuck in his head. Path's always had a sort of fetishistic interest in Bone-Feather anyhow so this was really only a matter of time.

I am knocking on Ishii's door, balancing a stack of her father's manuscripts in my arms. Reading Deadfeathers' work is always fascinating; now that Bone-Feather permanently resides in my head, the vicarious thrill of reading Sanguine's pieces are lessened, and I can focus more on his actual work. Deadfeathers always reminded me of my last incarnation, and once I took a strange pleasure in indulging in his work, feeling the character of, if not my connection to, Bone-Feather washing over me through someone else.

Now that Bone-Feather is here, though, commenting and pointing at what I perceive, though, Sanguine's work loses part of its draw, and since I've no real extra use for his necromancy besides mere curiosity, it's time to return his pieces to Ishii. She'll be happy to have them back; the last time I was here, she was cultivating a necrotic lab in the basement. She is her father's child in the best ways, and nothing like him in the worst.

It occurs to me as she opens the door that I didn't have Bone-Feather upstairs the last time I came here. There are a handful of feelings I associate with him "meeting" my friends, seeing my work. My manses and artifacts, I take pride in. Though I know they're only a pale imitation of his work, they are among the best made in this Age, and I will only grow better. For my works, I crave feedback, hunger for the tone of voice that suggests he's not impressed by scale but by resourcefulness. I want to learn from the best, and he is; I want him to regard me well, and my work is my best feature.

My friends, I associate with an uncomfortable feeling, as if I am introducing them to my father or mentor, which in a way, I suppose I am. Bone-Feather is adept at seeing the worst in people, especially me. I think he takes joy in pointing out the things that will change my view. Oddly, I think he is trying to challenge me; I have no basis for this assumption but my own understanding of him. He points out the worst to be vindicated- this is how he always lived. But I suspect that he doesn't want to be. He's seen what can be, now, and he doesn't think he'll be proven wrong, but he wants to be. The few moments I can remind him that sometimes, the weak are protected and the good triumph are vital.

So I think he points out the worst in my friends and lovers out of habit, but somewhere, he wants me to prove I am capable of ignoring that vein of the worst, not susceptible to his cruelty. That is always a tricky proposition, and I'm not even sure if it's true. This has led to bickering back and forth as he punctures holes in my defences of my friends no few times- Viiden, Rem, a handful of others. I know he will just keep doing it _because_ they are so important to me. That is just his way.

And he has not met Ishii. I feel that uncomfortable feeling start at my ankles and work up like water filling a room. I can feel him stir in my mind, probably roused by my discomfort. The wood grain on Ishii's door stands out in extreme relief.

 _What's going on in here, anyway,_ comes his voice. _You seem out of sorts, kiddo._ It's a loaded statement. He already knows, of course. He just draws it out to make it worse.

"It's nothing," I lie poorly. "Just try to keep it down, will you? I haven't seen Ishii for awhile." I am struck as I always am by the sensation- every time his voice comes in my mind, I can see him, as if he were standing just a little behind and beside me. When I walk the streets, it is with him beside me, now. So strange.

 _Right, and you want your sentimental reunion, don't you?_ he asks. _Go pour out your bleeding heart about how much you've missed her._

"Ishii and I are only friends," I tell him. This is not entirely true and he knows it before I even say it.

 _Not if she's got anything to say about it,_ he says. Oh right, of course, he's no doubt sifting through my memories and picking out every time I awkwardly turned down poor Ishii's advances. I forget, sometimes, that he has access to everything I've ever done.

Ishii opens the door. "Oh!" she exclaims, and runs a hand through her green and white hair. It's in a messy ponytail and immensely appealing. "Path! You're back in town? Oh, I'm sorry, please, please come in..." Ishii babbles at me for a few minutes, and I pick pieces of information out of her rattled exposition. It's... nice, to see her again. She reminds me so much of myself, when I was younger.

 _Yeah, that would be the attraction, wouldn't it?_ Bone-Feather pipes in.

"What, no," I fumble.

 _Haha, yeah right kid,_ he laughs at me. _You go for anything that reminds you of the old days. Who's she supposed to represent, hm? Who are you casting her as?_

"That's not what I'm doing," I rush. "I just like Ishii, and she's a little young, and that's all, nothing else is going on here."

His voice goes suddenly serious. _So you're playing me and Namer, huh. Like you did with the kid._

I am angry all of a sudden. Thankfully Ishii is just running down to the lab to check on something, so she can't see me whirl and catch my own reflection in the mirror on the wall. "You know that's not what happened. I didn't even know about you and him when Vii and I first... no, we're not going to talk about this. I'm not being you. I don't take advantage of people young enough to be my children. And if I pretend to be you sometimes, it's limited to manses and talking with deathlords. I'll never model my relationships after yours. Because I have never known any to be more fucked-up."

I am growling at myself in the mirror. Ishii's footsteps come up the stairs. I can't calm down. I flee.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Path learns from his First Age incarnation what Dragon-Bloods are for.

_You know,_ he offers later that night, _I didn't really figure you were trying for that situation._

It sounds similar to his evasive apologies, but he's also planting something. My recognition of it does not mean I'll be any less susceptible to it; merely that I know what he's trying to do.

 _I figured you were going for me and my lab assistants,_ he clarifies.

"Uh," I say. I'm at home, sprawled on my bed, so I don't bother trying to keep my voice internal. It's odd hearing the extra resonance of my voice echoing in my room and his lacking that, but it still feels more natural speaking to him out loud.

 _What, did I find something you haven't hunted down yet?_ he mocks. _I thought you knew everything about me._

"No. But I will," I say. I don't really want to cover this, but obviously he's extending what passes for an olive branch for him. "Alright, who were your lab assistants?"

I can feel him smirk. If he were still corporeal, if he was here, he'd have tilted his face down to look at me over his round spectacles, eyes glinting like a piece of glass with a wicked edge. His mouth would be quirked in anticipation and enjoyment- there's few things he likes more than horrifying the people who like him. His trademark bone-feather would just touch his shoulder. I close my eyes to keep up the effect, as if he were in the room with me.

 _Ehn,_ he says. _I can't keep track of them all. I didn't then, and it's been so long. I pretty much just picked out a handful of hot Terrestrials to follow me around and take notes. I'd cycle through every couple of years or so. I get bored easily._

"Yeah, no kidding," I reply. "Did their actual, you know, skills, mean anything to you?"

 _Well, they wouldn't have been working for me if they weren't at least as smart as V... your mate._ He never uses my friends' names. But then, he's seemed to treat Viiden differently of late. I note that down and don't think too much about it for now. _The system worked better then. That was just basic education. So why not make them hot. He never got it. He just dragged his advisor around and made him take notes._

"He" in that tone of voice always refers to Kas, an aggressive mantled way of saying it, as opposed to "he" meaning Namer, which comes in a grudgingly apologetic way, and "she" meaning the Hunter, which is full of fear and fury.

 _I mean, what are Dragon-Bloods for?_

I feel an ominous twinge at this. "What... are they for?" I manage suspiciously.

In response, a wave of memory washes over me and strips away my room. It has been a long time since I've had a really potent flash-back- I uncovered the most important, the most life-changing, the most emotional moments long ago, and those are by far the easiest to recall. I let myself drop who I am, and I am Bone-Feather again.

Sensation is the first thing, and then colour, drifting like watered-down paint in through the window. A city of colours too vibrant to truly be called reds, blues, golds, filters in through glass perfectly transparent without a hint of a bubble. My hands rest on my bench and I lean against it. Below me, a girl with crimson hair works at my belt, panting through red lips. Her hair flickers like flame and I can feel her warmth through my tunic and trousers. I am Bone-Feather, so my perception is coloured- mild disdain, jaded amusement. He feels young.

Then she frees my cock, and a tongue like a flicker of flame plays over me. There is odd distortion; Bone-Feather at the time much more used to this than I myself am. He... I laugh, and tell her that at this rate, she'll never get to work on the platform, because I'm just going to keep her for myself. She sets on me, gasping and moaning around my cock though I've never touched her, her hands on me stirring her up as much as if she caressed herself, and not me.

Then a skip in the memory. Same room, same bench. All my delicate instruments and scribbled careless notes are swept onto the floor. A girl is laid out before me on the bench, one hand clasping my lamp for balance. The fingers of her other hand are sliding into her mouth. She has green hair, fluttering down over the desk like a blanket she's laid out, well past her knees. Her skin is the soft colour of the heart of a birch, her eyes gently glowing emerald. I am rocking into her, and she is slick and clenching around me. Pressure against my back, breasts pressed against me, lips on my shoulder- a second girl slides to my side, utterly identical in every way. I slip my fingers between her lips and she sucks them hungrily. The girl below spasms and cries out, going limp, and I take my fingers out of the second girl's mouth. "Sir, please, please," she begs me. I slip out of her sister and the second hops up onto the desk without me asking. The two of them lay side by side as I press my cock into the second girl; their fingers entwine as one recovers and one is destroyed. I've never bothered to catch which is which.

Another skip. A different desk- three parts, perfectly organized, papers stacked neatly, tools laid straight in order. I throw the girl on it, and her white hair billows slightly. It's almost transparent, a neat effect, really. "Now don't show a sign," I say, "you don't want him to get mad, do you?" It must have been utter chance that Kas netted himself a secretary so gorgeous; he prides himself on not caring for their looks. He _does_ , of course, but he says he doesn't, which is why it'll piss him off so much when I fuck her, because there's no way he hasn't secretly wanted to. I lay in a contradictory compulsion with my words, telling her to use only atmospheric essence and not her own. The opposing rules will make her flip out, and I'm sure her explanation to Kas later will be truly hilarious to watch.

Her skin has a lovely blue tone to it, and has the slick feeling of a pane of ice. I brush my fingers over her slit as she crouches on hands and knees on Kas' desk, rub down over her clit. She looks like ice, but she's hot inside; her slit is getting wet as my fingers push against her. The earlier charms I laid on are starting to kick in, and she's moaning. Each breath out sends a puff of cold air, which begins spinning around us in a whirl. By the time I pull her hips towards me her anima is shredding papers and sending obsessively-placed tools whirling around the room. She is crying, half in frustration at my teasing and her inadvertent betrayal of her master, and half in ecstasy any time I touch her.

She comes hard the first time I bury my cock into her, and I mutter a quiet question in her ear about her exact relationship to Kas. Obviously he's never fucked her. But she wants it, for some reason, and she whimpers at the mention of his name. Well, at least somebody gets something out of her forever-unrequited crush on Morden. And at least it's me.

His papers flutter in tatters around me, and I smile as she cries. "Don't worry," I tell her. "I'm sure if you explain it all to him in a reasonable manner, he'll understand."

He'll understand the use of having perfect memory charms with all his current projects destroyed, that's for sure. One more argument, point to Bone-Feather.

I cough, sit up in bed, and am myself once more. I am... I am Path again, though so incredibly turned-on I can barely see straight. I have the faint impression that the three scenes I saw were merely a few of the ones he remembered best; there were dozens more, perhaps hundreds, of similar scenes. I suppose, through the haze, that he must have had his shop with Kas for nearly a thousand years. How many times have Viiden and I fumbled together in our space in New Yugash in the last ten years? How many times has Mercy snuck me aside in the house in Eithr, or Rem in our house in Great Forks? Perhaps the numbers are not so great.

 _That,_ comes his voice, and perhaps I imagine the hint of roughness to it, _is what you do with Dragon-Bloods._

"I've never," I manage shakily, trying desperately to calm myself down, to lose my arousal in talk, "really felt the attraction before, I suppose."

 _That's because of how weak the lines are now,_ he says. _Nothing like the feeling of fucking a flame or a tornado._

I am roused enough that I gasp a little at his words, sharp and sterile as they are.

 _Gave you something to think about, did I?_ he mutters. _How about you think about that the next time your little skinny Wood girl takes you down to her patchwork lab in the basement._

I have to assume that was an apology. It is incredibly hard to tell sometimes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Path learns from his last incarnation what Dragon-Bloods are for.

I don't know how I managed to get to sleep. I refused to give him the amusement of watching me get off on his words about Ishii. No matter how attractive I find her, how badly I am wanting, and how much his flashes of the past got through to me. He stops talking, after that, and I get the feeling as if he were standing at the window, looking out and ignoring me. There would be a distant look in his eyes, as if he were seeing not the world I do, but what once was here, perhaps two thousand years ago. Perfect memory is not always such a great gift.

At any rate, I sleep, somehow. It takes some time to calm myself down enough to drift off, and I always have trouble soothing my thoughts to sleep, even when they're not populated by stunning Dragon-Bloods of a bloodline stronger than any left in Creation, sucking off my last incarnation. The feeling of poaching his experiences is somewhat addictive; all the more so knowing he is here to comment on them.

= = =

I wake suddenly as something impacts my chest. My breath is driven from me in a rush, and my eyes fly open. They meet another set instantly. I know them so well, like mine but sharper, brighter, cool and interested. Bone-Feather stares into my eyes and grins at me. His arms are set on my chest, his head laid on them. His spectacles are whole and gleaming in that certain way First Age glass has; the feathers cresting his cheekbones crisp and blue-black, exactly the same as mine. I recall for a second his ghost, and the ratted, rusty feathers; not a Tell anymore, just the faint recollection of what it meant to have one. Unlike me, he has no tattoos. He had been dead for hundreds of years by the time chimerism broke out.

I have never seen him look at me, and look like this- as a whole person, I mean, and not the shade left in his death. Whenever he looks like this, I simply _am_ him. I am arrested. Bone-Feather is not a handsome man, but he has a force of personality that can be unnaturally charming when he wants it to be. He is not a man you can ignore.

Especially not when he's perched on your chest, staring at you. I blink at him in shock.

"Hey there kiddo," he says. "Long time no see, huh?"

"How... did this even happen?" I am floored.

He smirks. "Kid, if you knew even half of my secrets, maybe I'd be a little worried. But you have no idea what I can still do. But hey, lots of time for that later. Right now, time to make the most of it." He stands, stretches, flicks his arms out. "Ahhh," he makes a revelling sound, "it's good to move again." Then he turns on me, fixing me with his full attention again. "And I wouldn't be doing so if it weren't for you, kid. So I got you a bit of a present, to thank you."

He opens the door. I can't see past the frame. "No, come on," he says. Then, with a dangerous tone to his voice, "What did I just say?" He steps back. Ishii steps in. What is he doing? I stand.

I don't stand. I try. My limbs simply... don't move. Bone-Feather grins at me, and puts his hands down on Ishii's shoulders. She jumps. "Shh, hey, it's okay," Bone-Feather murmurs to her. I have never seen him behave like this. He's still Bone-Feather, so he's still controlling, careless with his power, wilfully ignorant of others' rights. But he's softer, perhaps more forgiving, almost... gentle. Is this what he's learned from me? "It's okay. You're here because you want to be. Because I asked you. And for him. Aren't you?"

"Yes, you're right," she answers. She offers him a small smile.

"Good girl," he says. I struggle to move. He smirks at me again. "She's got no bloodline. But she's cute enough." He strokes a possessive hand over her wingtips and Ishii shivers. "I like these, though. Reminds me." He shakes his head. "So what are you going to do here?" he prompts Ishii.

She looks doubtful for a moment. Confused. "I..."

"You're going to do as you're told, and you're going to start by putting your pretty little mouth around my cock," Bone-Feather says to her softly. Her eyes widen, lips part. But she nods, and turns around, working with shaking hands at his belt. For a second I see red nails there, and fiery hair, but then it is Ishii's fingers on the buckle, the same belt he wore in my vision of over two thousand years ago. She pulls it from around his waist, and he reaches down and takes it, holding it lazily in one hand.

She holds his shaft in small hands, looks up to him. He smiles at her, and it is full of teeth and joy. I have never seen him smile like that; the strangest combination of his new self and his old. Then he tilts his head back and lets out a long sigh as Ishii's mouth closes around him, and the expression of bliss seizes me. It must have been an unthinkably long time.

After a moment, enjoying, he places a hand on Ishii's head, caressing her hair. I can hear her, across the room and her mouth around Bone-Feather's cock, moaning around him and whimpering. He murmurs encouragement wreathed in charms to her and she gets louder. Her wings flutter, feathers twitching as nerves send random unfamiliar signals.

Her hair is braided between Bone-Feather's fingers. He moves his hand and she has no choice but to follow. He pulls her towards me. I am struck again by his movements, and I know that in some way, he is thinking of where her next step will put her. She hasn't made the slightest expression to suggest pain, simply awkward placing. I am, in a way, astonished. He tosses her at me, her hair unweaving and fluttering in ribbons from his fingers. He tosses his belt elsewhere, careless and carefree.

"Go on," he says. "I told you what to do." And he pays no further attention to Ishii whatsoever.

She slides onto me, tossing the blankets aside and planting tiny kisses up my chest across skin and moonsilver. Her tongue touches my neck, traces a hot line up my stomach; her hands stroke softly down my chest, over my hip, nervously down my leg and so close to my cock. I am hard, aching from Bone-Feather's images and words and watching him using little Ishii. When her touch does come, soft against my shaft, I arch my back and let my head drop back.

Bone-Feather catches it. His fingers knit with the same dexterity into my hair, weaving above my ponytail. My eyes open as he tilts my head for me. His eyes are so close, his cat's grin full of teeth and amusement. His other hand touches my neck, pulling my hair ornament from behind my ear. It is just one of my warform's feathers and a few beads, no artifact, but it is obvious to anyone who's seen him who I am mimicking. "Did I tell you I liked this," he asks me. "Not useful, but symbolic. You're tied to me, kiddo, and you don't even try to fight it anymore." He drops it.

"Now," he says, with all the evidence of enjoying himself immensely, "let's see if you won't give me a different kind of tribute." He stands, pulls me up to a half-sitting position. Ishii takes the moment to set her lips around my cock, swallowing it and engulfing me in wet heat. I moan, and Bone-Feather's cock is in my mouth.

It is not my first time doing this. But I'd only ever sucked Viiden's cock before. He was an exception to me. But now Bone-Feather is here, forcing it and rocking into my mouth and I am not fighting it but giving in and applying my tongue to him. What will he like, how must I change to please him?

For, I realize, I do. I always have. I want Bone-Feather to pat me on the head and tell me I've done well, and if that involves kneeling and sucking his cock, well, I have probably made worse bargains. Now I suppose I am playing Namer, for Bone-Feather can be nobody but himself; I look up at him and see him grinning down at me and I let this be my role in things.

Ishii slides up me, straddling over my cock and positioning it. I watch out of the corner of my eye as she pushes herself down onto me, moaning as she lets me fill her. She is tight, hot, and I've wanted to feel this since I met her. Bone-Feather knows, remembers my memory, and pulls slightly at the back of my head. There is a racing sensation from my hair tightening across my scalp, and a far deeper shiver from the feeling of him controlling me so simply.

They use me, or really, Bone-Feather uses her to use me further. Ishii has already tightened around me, grinding down on my cock, buried in her, and letting out a long high cry. She looked worn, and then Bone-Feather made a humming sound and her eyes glazed over silver. She keeps going. His castemark is glowing silver, and the flat raven sigil- my banner, our banner, is beginning to appear behind him as he hardens. His length subtly changes shape in my mouth; my tongue is pressed flat to the bottom of his cock and I can feel every minute shift.

Then he is finishing, both hands holding the back of my head; I couldn't move if I wanted to, and though some past memory of myself screams in horror at giving in to the greatest enemy I've ever had, to be truthful, it could never have happened any other way. I idolized him too much, even when I hated him. And I have not hated him in a long time. He lets out a groan, and then a shaking uneven laugh as I swallow.

Finally, he lets me go, dropping as he dropped Ishii; I fall, still without control of my own body, back to the bed, and he tumbles beside me, stretching out to watch us. Ishii cries mindlessly, a long and unstopping howl of desire, and I am almost, almost there when Bone-Feather speaks.

"Ishii," he says, calm as if he remarked on the clouds in the sky, "what did you think when I came to get you?"

She pants as she responds. "I thought... I thought you were... I thought you were Path," she says, and the impact of it rocks me. "Path, Path, Path, Path..." My name turns into a wail and she stiffens around me.

Bone-Feather takes my chin in his fingers, and turns my face to his. "She mistook us," he repeats, and savours the implications. "She thought I was you." I finish.

I empty into Ishii, her cry redoubles, and my vision blurs around Bone-Feather's eyes, Bone-Feather's face, and his grin right there beside me.

She thought I was him.

= = =

I wake up.

I am alone.

There is no alluring bewinged Dragon-Blood lying exhausted beside me. There is no Bone-Feather crashing to wring the air from my chest, nor laying as a strange mirror in the bed beside me. There is only me, and my mess of a bed, and my trembling limbs and overworked mind.

Then I am reminded that I am not quite alone after all, for Bone-Feather's voice comes in my mind. He is still here, not dead and gone but with me still.

 _That was a weird one,_ he says mildly, and despite our differences, I am with my last incarnation this time.


End file.
